THE END OF THE JOURNEY 301 



their loads immense earthenware jars to fill with oil at 

 Siwa, but it did not matter, for this was a friendly 

 desert, generous of her wood and water. We halted 

 at El Amra, where the Mahdi had built two great 

 cisterns some fifty feet long with domed roofs, through 

 holes in which the water drips into the immense chamber 

 below. Abu Bekr made tea with a swiftness suggesting 

 that his Caliph ancestor had bequeathed to him the 

 services of his familiar genii. Then we proceeded slowly, 

 walking and riding alternately another 12 kilometres to 

 Maktuh, where we turned the weary camels loose to 

 graze and cooked our rice and "asida" respectively under 

 a delightfully sweet-scented bush, while inquisitive black- 

 birds with impertinent white patches over their bills 

 hopped cheerfully around us. In red mist of sunset we 

 started to reload, noticing that Abu Bekr carefully 

 joioed his "Asr," "Fagr" and "Aisha" prayers into 

 one unending stream in order to avoid having to do any 

 work. 



A golden crescent lighted a white world as we left 

 the hatia, labouring through the sabakha with great 

 dunes looming on our right. I felt infinitely at peace 

 in the shimmering, silvery stillness, the silence only 

 broken by the soft pad-padding of the camels or Yusuf 's 

 sudden wailing chant in praise of his beloved qubba, 

 "white as the breast of a virgin." The desert was in 

 her most magical mood and I longed to turn south 

 again and ride back into her bourneless country by the 

 pale light of Jedi and Suhail. Then a strange murmur- 

 ing sound arose in the dunes. It was as if a great wind 

 bore the humming of a myriad monstrous bees. "The 

 jinns are awake to-night!" said Yusuf fearfully. 

 "Something evil will befall us. They are making a 

 great noise in the sands!" I laughed at him and 

 wondered if it were the throb of the breeze reverberating 



